Persistent Problem of the Work-Time Regime

With the contours of the work-time regime outlined, persistent problems associated with the regime can be identified. Persistent problems are complex, systemically reproduced issues in societal systems that are often the unintended consequences of earlier socio-economic

development patterns and rational methods of problem solving (Voss et al, 2006:4-7;

Schuitmaker, 2012: 1022). They are persistent due to their social reproduction by actors and structures. The view of actors contributing to the formation of persistent problems draws on Giddens (1984) theory of structuration, which posits that agents operate in and are influenced by structures designed and upheld by other agents; Therefore, structures and agents simultaneously shape one another through processes of continual interaction and reflexive feedback.

Persistent problems can be identified using a mix of theoretical literature and empirical observation of an issue area (Schuitmaker, 2012:1026). The theoretical literature on WTR evaluated in Chapter 4 suggests several potential persistent problems associated with work-time regimes, including high levels of mental stress, gender inequality, and environmental pressures.

Through the interviews conducted in Chapter 5, specific knowledge of the problems associated with working hours in Netherlands was generated. These included gender inequality, stress and burnout, and the labour shortage. The labour shortage does not meet the requirements of a persistent problem. Rather than being an enduring problem related to working hours that is systemically reproduced, it is a recent issue that appears linked to an exogenous landscape trend, the Covid-19 pandemic (Luther, 2021). This leaves mental stress, gender inequality, and

environmental unsustainability as the remaining potential persistent problems.

Historical analysis of the Dutch labour market shows that gender inequality has been an enduring problem (de Groot, 2021. The marginalization of female labour can be linked to normative and cultural institutions like ‘the ideological attachment to the male breadwinner

model’ which were reinforced by regulative institutions, such as how “the [Dutch] breadwinner model manifested itself after in child allowances, the tax system and social security provisions”

(Ibid:764). As economic development progressed however, women were recruited into the labour force to solve problems of low Dutch productivity and national income (Ibid). This eventually necessitated the legal enshrinement of part time work so women could contribute to the economy while still performing valuable unpaid labour in the home (Ibid: 765, 771).

Yet this now presents a persistent problem of gender inequality in the Netherlands.

Increasingly, women are expected to emulate men’s work patterns and work more to earn higher incomes while they still perform the majority of tasks in the home, leading to a doubly unequal situation: women are working more and doing most unpaid labour (Ministerie van Algemene Zaken, 2011). The problem is systemically reproduced in a context that carries the normative expectation for women perform home labour while also increasing pressure to work, gain income, and consume. This is supported by regulative institutions designed to optimize higher working hours with family expectations, leading to sunk costs in the form of welfare policies and tax incentives that contribute to path dependence and stifle radical innovation of working hours.

These institutions simultaneously serve as further justification for working more, as evidenced by the government’s argument that increasing the hours of part time workers is desirable for society because ‘An aging society needs sufficient shoulders to bear the burden of our welfare state’ (Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Wekrgelegenheid, 2020:2). This is a hallmark of locked-in, unsustainable regimes and is archetypal of what Loorbach (2017:198) observes, that ever more efficient systems “have contributed substantially to demographic, welfare, and consumption growth, but… have reached a point where they have become

completely locked-in and require still greater economic growth and efficiency improvements to maintain themselves”. The current regime exhibits this behavior, demonstrating how gender inequality is a systematically reproduced persistent problem.

In a similar manner, work-hours leading to mental health problems and eventually stress and burnout can be seen as a persistent problem. The link between modern working patterns and mental health issues was first explored by Emile Durkheim in his 1893 ‘The Division of Labour in Society’ (1997) and 1897 ‘Suicide: A Study in Sociology’ (2007), wherein he developed the concept of anomie. Durkheim observed how industrialization and the concomitant changes it

brought to working patterns and individual desires resulted in higher levels of stress and anomie in France, despite an increase in material wellbeing (Suzman, 2020:324).

In more recent history, the Netherlands has suffered from relatively high levels of work-related stress, burnout, and incapacitation due to mental health issues compared to other

countries (Schaufeli and Kompier, 2001). Work related stress is a ‘major problem in the Netherlands’, where in 2014, 14% of employees suffered work related stress (Bakhuys

Roozeboom et al, 2016:25). This number has remained relatively stable according to the CNV, who report that almost 15% of workers have a burnout, costing society up to 1.8 billion euros a year (de Jong, 2022:6:57).

Factors contributing to stress and burnout include low autonomy (Houtman et al, 2016:21), workload, time pressure, and work-home interference (Wiezer and Sonneveld, 2016:31). Each of these factors have a relation to the standard work hours upheld in the time regime. Standard and longer hours are known to negatively impact life balance, work-home balance, and time autonomy; therefore, the conditions leading to mental health issues like stress burnout are systemically reproduced through interactions with normative and regulative institutions that promote full time working and disincentivize WTR. Current methods of solving the issue through ‘burnout prevention’ strategies are criticized for focusing only on prevention and failing to address some of the fundamental issues: engagement, work-life balance, and autonomy (Ibid:29-33).

Altogether, the conditions resulting in mental stress are enduring, evidenced by a long historical context and growing rates of stress for over a decade of the current regime’s roughly 50 year lifespan (Statista, 2022), complex, involving a variety of explanations for cause and effect, and systemically reproduced by actors and structures in the current regime. Thus, it is a persistent problem of the work-time regime.

The final issue is environmental unsustainability. Environmental sustainability is a self-evidently persistent problem that the entire field of transition studies is dedicated to unraveling.

Problems like unsustainable levels of energy usage, carbon emissions, production, and

consumption are ubiquitous elements across many unsustainable regimes in modern consumer society. Nevertheless, individuals in the Netherlands have higher levels of consumption than the European average (Eurostat, 2021), which is already higher than most other regions (European Environment Agency, 2019). Working hours are neither the only nor the primary cause of these

issues, but solving them will require many transitions that may include work time reductions.

Therefore, while unsustainability is not unique to the Dutch work-time regime, it is still a persistent problem within it.